Henry Abbott lists several teams that might be interested in Stephon Marbury if/when he and the Knicks part ways…
Is your team on the list?
I could see the Celtics, Heat and Warriors rolling the dice. I don’t know if the other teams Abbott listed are desperate enough (or in the case of the C’s, have a strong enough of a culture to absorb Marbury’s baggage).
I realize that most of us already knew this, but Stephon Marbury confirmed on Monday that he is an utter moron.
“When things got bad and then worse, guys like Quentin Richardson say, ‘I don’t consider him a teammate. He let his teammates out to dry.’ He didn’t care I was his teammate when I was banished. They left me out for dead. It’s like we’re in a foxhole and I’m facing the other way. If I got shot in the head, at least you want to get shot by the enemy. I got shot in the head by my own guys in my foxhole. And they didn’t even give me an honorable death.”
I am not going to criticize Marbury for lashing out as his teammates or the organization. The Knicks are as culpable in this situation as Starbury is. (After all, they were the one that signed him in the first place.) But it’s completely inappropriate for Marbury to invoke images of soldiers shooting each other in a foxhole when this country is fighting two wars.
This might be worse than Kellen Winslow’s ‘I am a soldier’ tirade. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Marbury hasn’t spent any time in the armed forces. Thus far, he has earned $130,275,320 in his career and stands to make another $21,937,500 this season. In fact, the Knicks are considering giving him most of that salary just to go away.
Conversely, the salary range for enlisted soldiers is $15,276 to $67,104.
Athletes, please stop comparing yourselves to soldiers. You aren’t soldiers. There aren’t any bullets whizzing by your heads and you aren’t putting your lives on the line. You get paid an enormous amount of money to play a game, and you should show our veterans the proper respect. That starts with not using homicidal military comparisons when your teammates say something that you don’t like.
I’m sorry, Stephon, but you, sir, are an idiot.
ESPN’s Marc Stein lists the top expiring contracts (by dollar value) and discusses the chances of each player being traded before the trade deadline. Things will be especially interesting this season because teams are trying to clear cap space for the next couple of summers (due to the economy and the free agent bonanza of 2010).
1. Jason Kidd (Dallas Mavericks)
Expiring Salary: $21,372,000
Soon to be traded? HIGHLY UNLIKELYAll the regret the Mavericks are supposed to feel about parting with Devin Harris in February’s megatrade for Kidd fails to account for a few key developments in Dallas. 1. Kidd’s arrival, if nothing else, rejuvenated Dirk Nowitzki to the point that Nowitzki carried the Mavs into the playoffs late last season, which might have been the only way Dallas was going to get there. 2. Kidd is quietly playing quite well this season under Rick Carlisle, leading the Mavs to believe that one successful trade addition to fortify their woeful bench — which they presently are pursuing hard by offering up Jerry Stackhouse’s cap-friendly contract — could keep their Nowitzki-Kidd-Josh Howard-Jason Terry core in the West elite. 3. Sources say Dallas has been rejecting all Kidd inquiries because it would prefer to A) put off any drastic alterations until after giving this group an entire season with its new coach and B) play out the season without taking back any salary that extends past the 2009-10 season and into the free-agent bonanza that will follow.
4. Shawn Marion (Miami Heat)
Expiring Salary: $17,810,000
Soon to be traded? SOMEWHAT LIKELYMarion’s fate is one of the hardest for folks around the league to forecast. Some teams remain convinced Miami is determined to keep Marion on its books through the end of the season and then let him walk so the Heat can use the resulting salary-cap space to make a run at Utah’s Carlos Boozer seven months from now. Others believe the Heat are willing to trade Marion between now and February if they can get back “star quality” or at least players they like whose contracts don’t extend beyond 2009-10, when Dwyane Wade hits free agency. The strongest thing we can say is that Marion does have trade suitors (like Toronto) and is the most likely to be moved of the players in our top five. Which might or might not be saying much.
5. Mike Bibby (Atlanta Hawks)
Expiring Salary: $14,983,603
Soon to be traded? UNLIKELYBibby is a good fit with the Hawks fiscally and on the floor, as an accomplished shooter who plays well off star guard Joe Johnson … without taxing Atlanta’s well-documented financial restrictions. It remains to be seen whether the Hawks will defy the skeptics and try to re-sign Bibby at season’s end, but things have gone so well since Bibby arrived — with Atlanta halting its long playoff drought and taking Boston to seven games in the first round, then starting well this season in spite of multiple injuries — that you’d expect them to knock back any trade interest. One scenario floated this week suggested that Portland is putting Bibby proposals together.
I sure hope that the rumors about Portland trying to acquire Mike Bibby aren’t true. He’s shooting well through 15 games this season (46%), but it’s the first time that his accuracy has risen above the 44% mark since the 2004-05 season and it is largely dependent on his current 44% accuracy from long range. He hasn’t shot above 40% from three-point range since the 2002-03 season, so I expect that number to fall back to Earth sometime before the All-Star break.
The Blazers would be wise to avoid that 30 year-old landmine.
All times ET…
College Basketball
Friday, 3:30 PM: NIT Season Tip-Off Championship – #13 Oklahoma vs. #9 Purdue, ESPN2
Friday, 5:30 PM: Old Spice Classic Semifinal – Maryland vs. #10 Gonzaga, ESPN
Friday, 8 PM: California vs. UNLV
College Football
Saturday, 3:30 PM: Auburn vs. #1 Alabama, CBS
Saturday, 3:30 PM: #4 Florida vs. #20 Florida State, ABC
Saturday, 7 PM: #23 Oregon vs. #17 Oregon State, Versus
Saturday, 8 PM: #3 Oklahoma vs. #12 Oklahoma State, ABC
NBA
Friday, 8 PM: Miami Heat vs. Phoenix Suns, ESPN
Friday, 10:30 PM: Dallas Mavericks vs. Los Angeles Lakers, ESPN
Friday, 10 PM: New Orleans Hornets vs. Portland Trail Blazers
Saturday, 8:30 PM: San Antonio Spurs vs. Houston Rockets
Sunday, 9:30 PM: Toronto Raptors vs. Los Angeles Lakers
Sunday, 8 PM: Houston Rockets vs. Denver Nuggets
NFL
Sunday, 1 PM: New York Giants vs. Washington Redskins, Fox
Sunday, 4:15 PM: Denver Broncos vs. New York Jets, CBS
Sunday, 4:15 PM: Pittsburgh Steelers vs. New England Patriots, CBS
NHL
Friday, 7 PM: Montreal Canadiens vs. Washington Capitals
Saturday, 7 PM: Detroit Red Wings vs. Boston Bruins
Saturday, 7:30 PM: New Jersey Devils vs. Pittsburgh Penguins
The Knicks have suspended Stephon Marbury for two games for refusing to play.
In addition, the Knicks have clarified that Marbury actually will lose two games’ pay — or almost $400,000. Besides the one-game suspension without pay for refusing to play at Detroit on Wednesday night, Marbury also has been fined another game check for refusing to play last Friday at Milwaukee.
Clearly, Marbury knows his run with the Knicks is over. He broke his relative silence in an exclusive interview with a New York Post reporter whose coverage has been favorable to the Coney Island native. In an article published today, Marbury said of D’Antoni, “I wouldn’t trust him to walk my dog across the street.”
This makes me sick, but not for the reasons you might think. I’m sick because Marbury’s pay for two games is $400,000.
I don’t really care about which side treated the other with more disrespect. The Knicks say that Starbury refused to play and he says that he never said that he wouldn’t. There is a rumor that Mike D’Antoni offered the starting shooting guard slot — for the rest of the season, no less — which would obviously be a plan to showcase him before the trade deadline. But the Knicks won’t really gain anything in a trade unless they can get a draft pick or a cheap prospect. They don’t want to take on additional salary because it will jeopardize their chances to land LeBron in two years.
The two sides need to negotiate a buyout deal and end the relationship. The main hurdle there is that Marbury is acting as his own agent, so there isn’t a level-headed lawyer giving him advice. So let me step in…
The best thing for both parties is a buyout, but Marbury needs to be willing to back off his “not a penny less” demands. He’s not going to get much of a contract next summer if he doesn’t play this year, and he’s not going to play this year unless he signs with another team. He should take a buyout of $10-$12 million, and sign a one-year deal with a team that could use him. If he plays well, he’d be in a position to sign a 2-3 year deal for decent money ($4-$5 million per season?). If he stands his ground and demands the full salary, the Knicks could punish him for his unwillingness to compromise by continuing to pay him for the season, but banishing him from the team, like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did with Keyshawn Johnson a few years back. If they went that route, the decision would be made and it may (I repeat, “may”) cease to be a story. (After all, this is the NY media we’re talking about.)
What a mess.
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